"First of all, [for something to be great] there’s magnificence in every single department. Whether it’s genre, whether it’s locations, whether it’s cinematography, whether it’s performances, whether it’s script, whether it’s sound – that’s number one. I saw Lawrence of Arabia in theaters. I’d been an actor for about a year and a half; I was under contract to Elia Kazan. I went to the movie and I was absolutely blown away. But the thing that blew me away more than anything else was that the guy did that. I mean this isn’t “once upon a time;” a guy did that. A guy wrote the book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom. He was there, he did it, and I don’t think he ever saw 40 years old. Excuse my language, but I’ve always been quite impressed with people that got s—t done. And he got stuff done."

"This is the third film that I photographed for writer-director Paul Schrader. It is the film he was born to make, even though it is in a language that neither he nor I understood. It is the film of which I am most proud. I had never expected that I would photograph a film that I felt could take a place in the cinematic canon. It opened to some indifferent, even hostile reviews, by critics who had little patience to plumb its depths. This film and Two-Lane Blacktop (a film that was my first assignment as a camera assistant and that was also subject to poor initial reviews) represent two poles of the directorial aesthetic that has informed my own work as cinematographer. Paul Schrader and Monte Hellman, as different as their styles are, represent for me the integrity that American filmmaking can aspire to."

"I would say that one of the most profound memories was when my mother – who was film fanatic and loved thrillers – took me to see Rosemary’s Baby when I was nine years old. The film had a huge impact on me and, of course, scared the shit out me! I certainly wouldn’t take my 10-year-old to see Rosemary’s Baby. “It is a masterpiece in terms of the way it uses the language of movies and it directed me towards Hitchcock and that kind of visual storytelling, and thrillers in general – or maybe more psychological thrillers. So that was my first and most memorable movie. It was the psychological fear and oddness, the oddness of the characters; I remember I didn’t even understand it all when I first saw it. Visually there were so many things that I hadn’t seen before that have stayed with me."